


The Signs Are All There

by Beyond_Kailani



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Episode AU: s05e04 Slabtown, F/M, Gen, Pre-Relationship, Reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-08-11
Packaged: 2020-05-31 03:40:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19417738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beyond_Kailani/pseuds/Beyond_Kailani
Summary: Slabtown AU.Gasping for air, she dodged another tackle by the officer – one she didn’t recognise – aware that Noah was shouting her name. More gunshots rang out around the small parking lot.Again, she jumped out of the way, suddenly aware the officer’s attempts were gradually pushing her back; back from freedom and towards the hospital.She wasn’t going back there, she thought, venomously.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going so far out of my comfort zone with this one that I've sat on it for months going back and forth on whether I should post this but I hate things just sitting on my drive so here it is. Thank you to DoeRoseQ and Wordlet for beta'ing.

She could still feel his hands; his rough fingertips almost scratching her skin and nothing at all like her daddy's that had been calloused from the long, hard days of work. It felt like his palm had burned a tattoo to her midriff, intrusive and so far removed from the last man's touch she'd felt. Daryl's warm hands on her swollen ankle had felt like a soothing balm to the pain spiking through the joint. Gorman's grubby hands had felt like fire.

The dying scream he had managed before an overflow of blood had choked off the sound echoed in her ears. Someone else might've found the sound satisfying, but Beth would never feel gratified by another person's death, no matter what they'd done to her. It just wasn't in her, but she was so relieved that Gorman wouldn't be able to get his filthy handson any other girls. No one deserved what Joan had gone through.

Beth glanced down at the elevator key clasped tightly in her bandaged hand. Such a high risk for such a small thing, she mused and ducked around the corner, narrowly avoiding crashing into another of Grady's 'nurses'. Beth dropped her gaze and mumbled a soft apology before hurrying away, her Converses and their mismatched laces making a small squeak with every step.

She frowned,wishing for the tough, hard soles of her old boots. After so many days of silent hiking through a walker-infested forest, it was disconcerting to hear her own footsteps again. They masked the steps of anyone approaching, if they were smart enough to match their gait to hers.

The door to the linen closet finally appeared and she breathed a small sigh of relief to see it open. She ducked her head inside and saw Noah shaking out some sheets.

"Hey," he grinned easily, catching sight of her.

"I got it," Beth said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Noah stared at her for several seconds before his dark eyes brightened with delight. "You did? Did you have any problems?" he asked, and Beth could see his eyes tracing the outline of Gorman's gun that she'd tucked into the waistband of her scrubs.

"Nothin' I couldn't handle but we're gonna need to leave right now," she admitted.

Her friend didn't even skip a beat. He dropped the sheet to the ground and spun around quickly to grab a bag of dirty laundry. "Not a problem. This is full of the bigger sheets…they should get us down the shaft."

"Is there enough?" she asked. Noah nodded and heaved the bag on his back awkwardly. She stepped aside to let him past. "Do you have any other supplies?"

"No. Too risky to try and grab anything with how they account for every little debt in this place."

Beth nodded and tried not to let the disappoint show on her face. Noah was right, it would've been too much a risk to hoard away supplies. She hadn't been around long enough for any spot checks but it wouldn't surprise her if Dawn demanded them.

They were in a city though, Beth thought, it wouldn't take them long to find what they needed and get the hell out of town. She'd been taught how to hotwire a car during those long eight months on the road, so if she and Noah could find a working car, they could put more miles between them and the hospital. Stealing one of cars down in the parking lot briefly crossed her mind, but they really couldn't afford to spend time tracking down the keys and she wasn't sure how long it would take her to hotwire one, considering she'd only managed it once.

No, they'd have to run for it. She glanced at Noah limping along beside her. He could keep up with her walking pace easily enough, his longer legs eating up the distance, but she wasn't sure how well he'd be able to run.

Noah grabbed her arm and caused her to jerk to a stop. He nodded at the open doorway they needed to cross. Beth silently cursed herself for not paying enough attention. If they were spotted carrying around a bag of laundry and a stolen key, it wouldn't take a genius to figure out what they had planned.

They cautiously approached the shaft of light that bled into the hallway. She felt more than heard Noah huff a sigh of relief when they caught sight of the man in what Beth realised was a storage room.

Beth didn't know the man's name, but she did know he was one of the more elderly residents. Deaf without the batteries to fix his hearing aids and as blind as a bat thanks to his perpetually lost glasses, he would be easy to sneak past…even with squeaky shoes.

She gestured Noah on first as soon as the man's back was turned. He darted across the shaft of light and on towards the final set of doors separating them from their route to freedom.

Beth was almost clear of the doorway herself when she happened to let her gaze drop from the old man and instead focus on the storage room itself. It was packed to the brim with cardboard boxes of all shapes and sizes. It wasn't the boxes, however, that caught her 's gaze landed on her knife; the leather sheath almost shone in the bright fluorescent light

It was sat atop a cart, surrounded by so many other odds and ends that it was a miracle she had even managed to spot it. Her breath caught in her chest thesight of the familiar weapon and her fingers felt the itching desire to have its comforting weight back in her possession. Using Gorman's gun would be fine short term, but the bullets would quickly run out and it made far too much noise. If they were going to pull this insane plan off, they needed to be stealthy.

" _Beth!_ " Noah hissed.

Beth quickly waved off his frantic gesturing and, her heart pounding, she carefully stepped into the room, one eye on her target and the other on the old man slowly packing.

Trying to remember all she had learnt on the road last winter that included everything Daryl had ever shown her about moving quietly, she placed each foot with great care, grateful that she only needed to go about five feet. Praying that the old man wouldn't turn around, she finally felt her fingers graze the soft leather sheath. She dared a glance away from the man to make sure that she wouldn't accidentally knock anything from the table while she removed her knife from its resting place. Shefrowned when she realised it was right next to her old, grey knitted sweater. And her old ripped jeans. And her blood-splattered polo peeked out from underneath that.

For a second, Beth allowed herself to wonder how many other people's possessions had been neatly filed away in the drab cardboard boxes upon their owners' arrival at Grady, and whether any of these people had ever managed to work off the debt allotted to them. Her heart aching at the sheer number of precisely packed boxes, she doubted any had ever willingly been freed.

She gave herself a small mental shake, and with her knife pressed possessively to her chest, she snatched up her grey sweater before slowly back-stepping, mindful to tread carefully until she was out of sight of the old man.

She hurried towards Noah, who looked gaunt with fear by her actions.

"What were you doing?" he whispered, striding to keep pace with her.

"These are mine. I'm not leavin' 'em behind!" she hissed back, tying her sweater securely around her waist and tucking her knife into the waistband of her scrubs, the opposite side to Gorman's gun. They wouldn't be missed, and if they were, they would both hopefully be long gone from the area.

"You're something else, you know that?" Noah shook his head.

Beth wasn't quite sure about what to make of the slight awe colouring his voice, so she chose instead to nudge him along quickly.

They met no further people until they reached the elevator doors. Beth waved Noah on through first, and stood guard at the door, watching through the sliver of glass to make sure that they weren't being followed. Behind her, next to the elevator shaft itself, Noah set about tying the sheets securely together to create a makeshift rope. For several minutes, the only sound that could be heard was the shifting of fabric as it was pulled together tightly, coupled withNoah's soft grunts of exertion, but Beth refused to let herself relax even a little bit. She rested a hand on the smooth bone handle of her knife, taking comfort in its presence.

The eerie quietness of the once bustling corridors reminded Beth of the funeral home, and her skin crawled with unease at the resemblance. That place had undoubtedly been set and baited like a trap, and like a naïve idiot, she had allowed herself to be swept up in the euphoria of finally having a safe place where she and Daryl could rest. They'd been desperate for it. Her sprained ankle had been a hindrance they hadn't really been able to afford, although Daryl had dealt with the unexpected setback with more patience than Maggie probably would've done.

The hospital was just another part of the mechanism, and she wasn't going to allow herself to fall into complacency when they were so close to achieving freedom.

"Ready when you are."

Beth hurried to her friend's side and allowed him to tie one end of the homemade rope securely around her waist. She privately admitted she was a little impressed with his idea of escape, even if she wasn't altogether all that keen on dropping into the unknown darkness below. And it was the unknown. Beth had helped Doctor Edwards drop a deceased body into the abyss and she didn't even want to think how many others had met the same fate, but what concerned her the most was if all the bodies had been dealt with in such a way that would prevent them from rising again. From what information she had gleaned from the few people she had talked to, the hospital had been running since the beginning, so it begged the question of when did the people seeking sanctuary within its walls finally realise that they had to destroy the brain to prevent the dead from walking again. There could be any number of walkers below and they had no way of finding out until they were actually down there.

Noah's voice dragged her back to the most immediate concern, which was actually getting down safely in the first place. The rest she could deal with when her feet were back on solid ground.

"Okay, I'm going to lower you slowly, but try to hold as much of your weight as you can on your feet against the walls, alright?" He handed her their only flashlight.

Beth had to admit Noah was stronger than he looked; he lowered her as gently and steadily as he could. She tried to do as he'd suggested, but the rubber soles of her shoes gave her very little purchase against the vertical steel walls.

The fabric rope jerked and slipped, almost wrenching a scream from her lips but she managed to catch herself at the last second, before it steadied again. She heard Noah's whispered apology from somewhere above her. Beth couldn't help the hiss of pain that escaped where her bandaged hand clenched tightly around the sheets and she consciously forced herself to relax her grip.

Beth glanced down, wishing she had a hand to spare to push away the blond locks of hair that were sticking to her sweaty forehead. She tried to point the flashlight down in a bid to see how much further she still had to go but the angle was all wrong and she quickly gave up.

She tried to ignore the fear the inky blackness threatened her with, and instead forced her thoughts to her family.

Maggie; her wonderfully brave, if somewhat bossy, big sister who always seemed to know exactly what to do. Glenn whose bear hugs reminded her painfully of Shawn. Carol and Michonne who had both managed to overcome the darkest depths of grief that had hovered over them like a cloud for nearly as long as she'd known them. Her Daddy; smiling even in the face of death. Rick; the man who had pushed and pulled them all along for so many days, weeks, _months_ , no matter how hard it became, no matter how uncertain each day had been. He had been their rock, their anchor in the storm.

And Daryl. Of course, Daryl. The man who never quit, who never gave up. She had no idea what had happened to the rest of her family after the prison fell but she'd had Daryl and that had been enough. For all that she wanted to find the others, if it had never happened, she would've been content to know at least she wasn't alone and she so desperately wanted to believe that he had made it out of the funeral home safely. He'd been beaten, shot, and had his side punctured by one of his own bolts. She refused to believe that a small herd of walkers would be the end of him. Daryl wouldn't have left her like that.

Maybe even more than her sister, she wanted to see Daryl. She _needed_ to see Daryl. To apologise for forgetting everything he had taught her about being aware of her surroundings, for letting herself get adducted, because while she didn't remember all the details, she knew with absolute certainly that Gorman had lied. She had managed to kill a few of the walkers that were wandering out on the road, right where Daryl had said he would meet her, but after that, she knew nothing. She could only guess that Gorman had snuck up from behind and struck her with something. She had no idea if Gorman had actually met Daryl out on that road too, but she knew if it was within Daryl's power, he wouldn't have let her go willingly.

The fact she had absolutely no idea what had happened to her friend was agonising. Possibly even more so than losing everyone in the prison. But she didn't have time to examine those feelings. Sorting out her muddled thoughts would have to wait until she was safely away from Grady.

Beth rubbed her face awkwardly on her shoulders, scrubbing away the urge to cry and forcing herself to focus on the present.

She glanced around her, trying once again to guess how much further down she had to go. Just as she was hoping that Noah hadn't miscalculated the amount of sheets needed to reach the bottom, she realised she was dipping past another elevator door… an _open_ elevator door.

" _The signs are all there, you just gotta know how to read 'em."_

Daryl's words echoed around her head. He'd only said it once, but they'd stuck with her. They'd become her mantra as she'd learnt the ins and outs of the hospital. She reached the point at which she could peer through the two foot wide opening. She nearly cursed aloud at the sight of several walkers in the overrun lower floor and hurried to switch off the flashlight. They were wandering aimlessly, but it would only take one little sound and they would be drawn towards the elevator shaft. The weight of them might even force the doors open wider and they really couldn't afford to have walkers raining down on them from above as well as whateverremained below.

She couldn't leave the doors open. It was too risky. She gripped the flashlight between her teeth and gently tried to shove one of the elevator doors. It slid smoothly and silently to the middle where it clicked into place. She allowed herself a small gasp of triumph before trying the second door. It didn't move.

Frowning, she threw as much of her weight behind her as she could,but the awkward angle made it nearly impossible. She scrambled for purchase on the shaft walls and flinched when one of her rubber soles screeched across the metal. Through the now foot wide gap, Beth spotted a female walker turn and start lumbering towards her, its one remaining hand snatching at the air.

Her heart hammering, Beth gave the door another hard shove. It moved an inch.

"C'mon!" she hissed around the flashlight. Her palms were slick with sweat and her fractured wrist protested, but she ignored both and pushed hard. For one agonising moment, she thought it wasn't going to move, but then finally... _finally_...the metal doors clanged together with an enormous bang.

The sheet rope came to an immediate stop. Beth let her forehead drop forward onto the now closed doors, the cool metal a welcome reprieve from the hot and humid shaft.

"Beth?" Noah's voice called from above, uncertain.

The slap of a hand reverberated through the metal door and Beth jerked away. Panting hard and her hands shaking, she almost dropped the flashlight. "I'm fine!" she called up, as loud as she dared.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Keep going, I can see the bottom." And she could; the weird shapes of the top of the elevator base loomed in the shadows between her feet. She only had another ten feet or so. "Watch out for the first floor doors when you pass 'em! There are walkers."

Balanced precariously atop the twisted metal frame of the elevator itself, Beth waited as patiently as she could for Noah to descend, taking comfort in the fact her feet were back on somewhat solid ground.

Despite how her stomach squirmed uncomfortably, she forced herself to examine the pile of bodies that was so deep it nearly reached where she stood. The weight of them had caused the elevator roof to collapse in and the overspill had forced the doors open. The sheer amount of bodies was staggering and she couldn't help but wonder how many of them could've lived had Dawn been more merciful. She completely understood the fear of resources running out. It had been a constant cause for concern at the prison and a topic that was discussed regularly, but Beth thought surely some of these poor, unfortunate souls must've been worth saving.

Her gaze landed on a twisted and mangled body and she recognised it as the one that she had helped Dr Edwards dispose of. Tears of grief, frustration **,** and anger like she hadn't felt since she had been forced to stare through a chain link fence and watch a madman decapitate her daddy threatened to overwhelm her, but she forced herself to push it aside. As much as she wished she could scream at the injustice of it all…that she could burn down the hospital as easily as they burned down the cabin. Shehad a job to do.

A loud clang from above made her jump. She looked up through the gloom to see Noah cringing right outside the first floor elevator doors she'd barely managed to close. Another clang echoed off the metal walls and it was answered with a soft groan from below.

Beth ducked down, trying to hold her breath and not inhale the rotten stink of freshly decaying bodies, while peering through the narrow gap that led out to freedom and fresh air. A walker appeared from the shadows and began to paw at the mound, growling pitifully.

Noah landed beside her, wavering on his good leg until he caught his balance.

"Man, it stinks down here," he whispered, his face scrunched up.

Beth hummed her agreement, although she quietly thought it reminded her of the tombs in the prison, to the point she almost took comfort in its familiarity. It had taken weeks until they had had it all cleared after the Governer's first invasion of their home and for the lingering smell of the dead to finally disappear. It had terrified her to creep through the darkness at first and she flatly refused to go anywhere down there alone. Lori and T-Dog had both lost their lives in those tombs and although it was irrational of her, she was scared she would see their faces in every walker down there.

The longer they were there though, the more the forsaken rooms had been overtaken by life; a store room for canned goods, fresh food from forages or Rick's fledgling garden, additional clothes, a room for hardware and tools. Daryl and Glenn had even tried setting up one room so they could smoke meat, with mixed results.

"Watch my back," said Beth, drawing her knife from the waistband of her scrubs. She stepped carefully onto the bodies, mindful of where she trod. The last thing she wanted to do was sprain her ankle again. She approached the walker slowly, dropping to her knees and using the height of the dead bodies to drive the blade of the knife through the top of the skull. It slid in like butter and was silenced instantly. She gently pulled her knife free and the formally reanimated body dropped to the ground with a soft thud.

"Why not just shoot it?" Noah asked, stepping up behind her.

"Too much noise. We need to get as far as we can before we have to use it. Can you shoot?" She was suddenly struck with the thought that she hadn't even asked. If Noah was more comfortable with a bladed weapon, he could have her knife but she was loathe to give it up now that she had it back.

Noah shrugged. "Probably gonna be rusty after being stuck behind these walls for months, but yeah... I'm a pretty good shot."

Beth pulled the gun free of her scrubs and quickly checked the safety. It felt odd to hold a gun again after days of using Daryl's crossbow and she found herself wishing for its hefty weight in her arms. Shaking her head, she handed the gun to Noah.

"Don't use it until we absolutely have to and only to clear our path. Don't worry about any of the others. You ready?"

"Let's do this." Noah nodded.

Their somewhat uncoordinated slide down the mound of bodies made enough noise to attract a couple more walkers, but Beth managed to dispatch them easily enough.

They ran through the disused corridor, Beth trying vainly to use the flashlight as a guide so neither of them fell, but it was a small light for such a big area and was near useless. Noah's limp didn't hold them up as much as Beth had feared it might, but she had to wonder how much it was hurting him. He had a grimace of pain on his face, but he didn't slow down or complain.

It felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than a few minutes before a shaft of light appeared into view around a bend. Even over the growls of the dead, Beth could hear the door bumping against its frame and she spared herself a moment of relief that the doors hadn't been padlocked from the outside.

"Go!" she shouted, knocking the walker that loomed out of the shadows aside, not even bothering to slow down and kill it.

Noah barrelled through the door hard enough that it rebounded on the bricks, Beth hot on his heels. Blinking in the harsh sunlight that assaulted her, Beth saw Noah raise Gorman's gun and take out the first walker that approached them with a single shot to the head. Relieved he hadn't been exaggerating his skills, Beth turned her attention to a walker coming at them from the side and thrust her blade up through its temple. She yanked her arm back and ran after Noah, who had cleared the path to the first chain link fence. He held the torn fence back and allowed her to scramble through.

A lock of her hair caught and tore on the broken edges **,** but she ignored the sting and kicked the legs out from under a walker – male or female, she couldn't tell at that point – before driving her knife through an eye socket. She grimaced at the soft squelching as she withdrew the blade and flicked it to rid it of some of the gore.

There was blast of gunshot from behind her and the closest walker's head snapped back from the force of the bullet tearing through its forehead. Noah ran past her, gun already raised to take out another.

The second and final fence was in sight. Beth couldn't help the small smile from breaking out.

A guttural growl had her whipping around, knife raised. But her gaze was quickly drawn downwards to a female walker, her legs and lower body missing, dragging itself towards her, inch by painful inch. For a moment, she thought about smashing the thing's head in with her foot - much like she had seen Daryl do - but it wasn't worth the time or effort. It wouldn't reach her.

The shouts of people very much alive had her head snapping up. Beth barely had time to react before a blur of black tried to tackle her. She ducked low, beneath the grasping arms thatthreatened to grab her, and danced away.

They knew they would be chased - it was inevitable - and it had taken them a few minutes longer than Beth had thought it would. But the sight of the officers rushing towards them - some thankfully distracted by walkers - was still enough to get her heart pounding a painful rhythm in her chest.

Gasping for air, she dodged another tackle by the officer – one she didn't recognise – aware that Noah was shouting her name. More gunshots rang out around the small parking lot.

Again, she jumped out of the way, suddenly aware the officer's attempts were gradually pushing her back; back from freedom and towards the hospital.

She wasn't going back there, she thought, venomously. Without much thought, she planted her feet and twisted, knife gripped purposefully in her hand. She was suddenly face to face with the man and his eyes widened in surprise at the sudden manoeuvre. She slashed in a downward arc. Her knife made contact with flesh much more solid than what she usually struck.

The officer fell back, screaming in agony and clutching at his bleeding forearm, blood dripping between his fingers. It wasn't a life threatening cut by any means but it was deep enough to do the job. Beth ran around the fallen man, leapt over the female walker who had diverted her track towards the bleeding man and ran for the fence.

Noah had made it to the other side of the fence. He hadn't run though - instead he stood firm, shooting with precision at any walker in her way. He kept a path open for her while leaving others for the officers to deal with.

Despite the breathlessness and the adrenaline coursing through her, she broke into another grin, uncaring that the action pulled at the stitches in her cheek. She had told Daryl there were still good people and Noah was definitely one of those people. He could've left her as soon as he saw the cop snatching at her, blocking her path and forcing her back, but he hadn't. He'd stayed.

Dawn was wrong, Beth thought, catching Noah's own grin of elation when she passed through the final barrier. They were strong. As soon as she was through, they both glanced back, but there was only chaos to be seen. Walkers were ambling everywhere, cops were firing – not always successfully – and there were shouts of half-followed orders. No one was interested in them.

"Let's get outta here," Beth muttered.

"Hell yeah!"

Barely pausing to catch their breath, they set off down the street at a run, no destination in mind and the only sounds being the gunshots and growls from the parking lot rapidly disappearing behind them.

"Here!" Noah called, making Beth skid to a stop and turn to see Noah had run from the road and towards an alley. She quickly followed. "In here!"

Knife ready, she ducked under his arm and through the door he'd pried open. Quickly noting the emptiness of the small office they were in, she spun around to help him wedge the door shut. They backedaway slowly, both panting hard. For several seconds, neither dared move while they waited to hear if the noise had attracted any attention… living or dead.

"You see anyone following us?" he asked, falling back against a wall and sliding down to the floor with a soft thump.

Beth shook her headand sank into an old desk chair, ignoring the plume of dust that rose into the air and rested her head back against the wall. "I think they'll be busy clearing that parking lot for a while."

"We should be able to cut through most of these buildings. Should give us some cover until we're a bit further away. We're not that far from Grady and Dawn's going to send out a search unit as soon as she can," said Noah, not bothering to hide his disgust with the woman now thathe was no longer in her grasp. He struggled to his feet.

"You're probably right," Beth agreed. They had done the ultimate insult to Dawn by escaping. They had proved they were strong and she couldn't control them like she did the rest of the people under her 'care'.

She drew a deep breath and forced her aching body back into motion. Her wrist was throbbing in time to her heartbeat and she had no doubt that it had swollen up underneath the filthy cast but she would have to leave it. The sweat she'd built up in her run had started to cool and she shivered, unwrapping her grey sweaterthat had somehow miraculously remained tied to her waist throughout the entire ordeal and pulled it on awkwardly.

"How well do you know Atlanta?" Noah asked, after nearly an hour of complete silence. It hadn't been an awkward silence though. Noah actually reminded her of Tyreese with his calm and solid presence at her side. Beth liked to think Noah might actually get along with the gentle giant of a man and his sister.

"Not as well as I'd like **,** considering we have to get out of here somehow," she admitted, voice soft in the gloom of the kitchenette they were foraging through.

Although they were sticking as close to the buildings as possible, and cutting through alleys at every opportunity, her skin was practically crawling being in such open and exposed buildings. There was no way she could see anything coming at them and she found she couldn't wait to be back under the safe canopy of the trees. She was a farm girl at heart and had never felt particularly comfortable in any city she'd ever visited on vacation, and she rather felt as if she had outstayed her welcome in Atlanta.

"My hometown is north of here," Noah reminded her.

"I guess we should head that way," she agreed, trying not to think of the fact that the farm had been south of the city. She had no idea where the prison had been in relation to Atlanta, and she had no idea how close she and Daryl had wandered towards the city after it fell, but they must've been closer than she'dthought for Gorman to have been able to snatch her ashe had. A full tank of gas was like gold in the current day and age; there was no way that he had travelledhundreds of miles outside of the city limits in order to find people.

Beth wasn't entirely sure what that meant in regards to finding her family… finding Daryl again. But she had to hope their paths would cross. She didn't want to leave Georgia without them, but she might not have a choice.

She'd have to find a way of leaving a sign, she thought. But she would deal with that hurdle when she came to it.

"We're gonna need some supplies first. Look out for an apartment block. They might still have some canned foods left behind from after the evacuation. It should be safe enough to stay in an apartment tonight so long as we clear it and are quiet," she said, shutting another cupboard door, having found it hopelessly bare.

"Like clothes," Noah agreed readily. "I'm sick of wearing scrubs. Green is not my colour."

With darkness setting in fast, they had no choice but to spend the night in the first apartment block they could find. They quickly dismissed all the ground floor apartments; with nearly all the doors hanging from their hinges, it looked like the army had been forceful in evacuating the building's residents. The second floor wasn't in a much better state, but from the third floor up, everything remained nearly untouched. Beth counted eight floors in the building, but a quick glance out of a window had revealed that the old fire escape was peeling away from the building from the fourth floor upwards, and Beth was hesitant about going higher when their only other escape route was gone, so they settled in a third storey apartment.

Between the two of them, they managed to scavenge a few out-of-date energy bars from the neighbouring apartment before they barricaded themselves into their chosen home for the night.

Beth found a metal trash cash in the kitchen and an old pot. And somehow, miraculously, the water was still running in the building, so she was able to boil up some precious drinking water.

Noah emerged from one of the bedrooms just as she was starting on another pot, dressed in clothes that didn't quite hang right and were a little too colourful for Beth's liking. In his bright red sweater, he would stand out like a beacon in the middle of a forest, and she made a mental note that they would have to find some more appropriate clothes for him.

"Your turn, I'll keep an eye on things out here," he said.

She slipped into the second bedroom and started to rummage around. Most of the clothes she found were men's - possibly a college student, judging by the lack of business attire - but she was relieved to see a pair of women's jeans folded up in a drawer, which probably once belonged to the man's girlfriend. They were a little large on her, but with a belt they would do.

She hit the jackpot though, when she started on the remaining drawers and found t-shirts and several sets of underwear. Everything smelt a little musty after being shut away for so long, but they were clean. She swiped up her chosen items and slipped into the bathroom, noting Noah had thoughtfully refilled the bath with a few inches of fresh water for her to wash in.

The familiar routine of getting washed, of scrubbing the smell of Grady off her skin, and pulling on fresh clothes that made her feel like a person againdistracted her for several minutes. It was only when she tugged a brush through her hair and finally stepped in front of the sink that she froze.

There had been no mirrors in Grady. Her little hospital suite had had an attached bathroom with a toilet and sink, but the mirror had been removed. Probably to stop people from using the glass as a weapon. Or for harming themselves. Like Joan had done. Like she had done… so many months ago.

But there had been no mirrors, so Beth hadn't been able to see the gash on her cheek. It was deeper than she'd expected, and even with the neat stitches it was going to leave a scar. She was rather glad in that moment than she didn't remember receiving the blow to the head that left behind such a wound. She gently prodded the surrounding area, flinching at the still tender flesh.

Beth let her hand drop to her side and drew in a deep, steadying breath. She wasn't so vain that she was going to let a scar concern her. She would think of it as it truly was; a war wound. It would heal and just be another mark to prove she had survived. That she had made it.

She picked up the forgotten brush and quickly tugged her hair into some semblance of order, taking the time she hadn't been granted at the hospital to weave a braid back into her ponytail. She slipped back into her Conversesand looped her knife sheath through her belt, settling it comfortably against her hip and upper thigh.

"I found a street map," Noah announced, as she stepped back into the main room.

"That's good. Any ideas where we are?"

"Hospital is here. We're right about here, as far as I can tell. Interstate 85isn't too far away. That might be our best bet at getting out of the city."

Beth nodded and leantover the map. "Anywhere we might be able to find some supplies before we leave?"

"Here, I think. It's got a load of offices and temporary housing shelters. My dad and I came through it when we were looking for my uncle. Everyone had picked through the apartments, but we found some good stuff in the offices. You know, people get the munchies at work so there was a large supply of snacks in their desks. We might find some other supplies too. In Richmond, people were ordered to stay inside. They weren't allowed out to go home for days since it wasn't safe, so supplies were dropped off all around the businesses by the army. I figure Atlanta might've been the same."

"It was. Maggie was in touch with a few of our friends until the phones went down. They'd all been told to stay put until they could get to the evacuation sites." Beth remembered Maggie and Shawn had had some heated debates about whether they should brave the traffic and attempt to get to one of the refugee centres that'd been set up, but with no further phone calls or texts from friends, and when the broadcasts finally ended, no one had ever brought it up again.

Without warning, a yawn overcame her and fatigue flowed through the floodgates. She hadn't slept well while in Grady, her nights plagued by dreams - most of which consisted of her running around a walker-infested funeral home, searching desperately for Daryl but always waking up before she could find him.

Noah tossed her a worn, knitted blanket and pointed at the couch. "I'll take first watch."

"You sure?" she asked.

"Yeah, you get some rest."

"Thanks. Wake me in four hours," she requested.

Despite her tiredness and the lateness of the hour, Beth laid awake for a while, stifling yawns into her bandaged arm. Noah was her friend, and she was beyond glad that she wasn't alone, but he wasn't someone she was used to having guard her while she slept. Like a lost limb, she missed Daryl's steadfast presence beside her. Even when they had been on the road after the farm was gone she had woken more times than she could remember to find Daryl on watch, minding their campsite with a single-minded drive to protect them all. The angel wings on his leather vest had often been one of the first things to greet her in the morning.

Beth rolled towards the back of the couch, squeezing her eyes shut tight and trying to ignore the lump in her throat. Even though the odds were stacked against her, she prayed that come morning, she would see be able to see those angel wings and the man who wore them again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks as always to Wordlet for beta'ing!

Hands on her hips, Beth examined her morning’s haul spread out on the conference table.

Several out of date snacks bars; three waters bottles, filled with water from an office cooler which hadn’t yet had its seal broken; a sturdy pair of walking boots; a sleeping bag, with some questionable stains colouring the lime green material; a small backpack with a broken bungee cord and a knife with the name _Winchester_ scrawled across the shining silver blade.

The knife would do for Noah, she supposed, since they were out of bullets for the handgun.

Beth sighed. The lack of food was a concern, but she hoped that situation would resolve itself once they were out of the city and back in the surrounding countryside where she could put some of Daryl’s hunting lessons into practice. She added thin wires to her mental list of things to keep an eye out for; something strong yet flexible that she could use as a snare. She’d seen Daryl and Rick make plenty of snares from natural wood fibres but she wasn’t at all confident in her ability to make one herself, so she really hoped they passed a hardware store or something on their way of the city.

She had also failed in finding Noah slightly less conspicuous clothes. Everything she had found that looked like it might fit had been on a long dead walker and smelt and looked worse than the sleeping bag she’d found, so she’d given up for the morning. She hadn’t wanted to be late getting to their meeting point, but as it was, she’d arrived a little early.

She pulled out a desk chair and sank into the soft, subtle leather seat with a heavy sigh. She’d been grateful to have something to do all morning. It had pushed away the thoughts gnawing away at her conscience but now all she had left to do was wait for Noah, she couldn’t help but let them flow to the forefront again.

Beth wanted out of Atlanta, and fast. It was the right thing to do, there was no doubt about that. Grady was like a shadow that overlooked the entire city, there was no escaping its clutches unless they left the city entirely. But if Daryl was still alive – and the very thought of him not being sent a spiking pain through her chest that she struggled to breathe around – then she wholeheartedly believed he would follow her. It wasn’t like after the prison, when they had absolutely no idea what had happened to the rest of their family. Daryl knew that she wouldn’t have left him willingly, not after everything they’d been through together, and she _knew_ he would do everything in his power to find her. She’d seen it before, in his dogged determination to find Sophia. He would do it for her too.

And if he was able to hunt her down, she knew any clues he had would lead him straight into the city. The city she planned on leaving. Daryl was an amazing hunter and tracker, but even he could lose a trail, especially in a city as large as Atlanta. If she left, he’d have no way of knowing. He might even walk straight into trouble and get himself killed in a rescue mission that wasn’t even needed anymore.

She drew her legs up on the chair and wrapped her arms tightly around her knees, jamming her face into the rough denim of her jeans. How in the world she was meant to let him know where she was, she had no idea, she thought, despairingly. It was already an impossible task to ask of Daryl. She was snatched by a man with a car. She couldn’t expect him to keep up with her on foot.

_“The signs are all there.”_

“Please… Give me a sign,” she whispered, into thin air. The office remained still and silent in response to her plea.

She remembered saying she didn’t cry anymore, but in that moment, the hot tears cutting streaks down her cheeks made a liar out of her.

Beth allowed herself only a few minutes to silently sob before drawing in several deep ragged breathes. She gradually uncurled and gently wiped away her face on her t-shirt, mindful of the cut to her cheek which had started to sting slightly from her salty tears.

Giving herself a little shake, Beth told herself to focus and once again surveyed her small haul. She dragged the black walking boots she’d found stuffed in a broken locker in a changing room towards her. The laces were gone but they looked to be the right size and much more suitable than the Converses that Grady had supplied her with.

Beth quickly changed into her new footwear, looping the mismatched laces from the Converses into the boots and tying them tightly. She stood and wiggled her feet around, grinning with delight. They were a perfect fit, had a sturdy sole and were much, _much_ quieter than the stupid Converses.

“Beth?”

With a soft smile, Beth breathed a sigh of relief at hearing her friend’s voice from the corridor. She quickly wiped her face again, hoping her eyes weren’t too red from crying and that Noah wouldn’t draw attention to it.

“In the conference room!”

“You won’t believe what I’ve got!” he called to her, his voice accompanied by his hurried, slightly unbalanced footsteps. He sounded so excited that Beth didn’t have the heart to tell him to lower his voice. She had cleared the office of a few walkers but there might be more hanging around which hadn’t yet found their way down to the ground floor.

“I found something for you too,” she replied, glancing at the _Winchester_ blade resting on the shiny table top. It looked ridiculously out of place in such a smart office with its imposing abstract art on the walls but everything was out of place now, she mused, pulling the sleeping bag towards her and starting to roll it up tightly so she could secure it to the bag by the bungee cord that had lost all of its elasticity, but it would do the job. 

“I bet you the next chocolate bar we find that mine’s better!”

Beth couldn’t help but he impressed by his boast. Chocolate was a luxury one did not trade lightly.

“Check these out!” Noah exclaimed, bursting through the doorway.

Beth felt the smile freeze on her face and her voice failed her. She hardly dared blink, afraid that if she did, it would turn out to only be a mirage and the sight would disappear into the abyss. Her eyes followed the weapon greedily as Noah threw the strap over his head and her hands itched to touch it, to make sure it was real. She took an unconscious step forward, drawn like a magnet to the crossbow Noah displayed proudly.

She knew that crossbow intimately; every scratch and scruff on its dulled black metal; the strings that had claimed a bit of her blood when she had tried to load a bolt for the first time and it cut into her fingers, the pain of which had only been dulled by the fact her attempt had brought the first true smile she’d seen on Daryl’s face in days. She’d seen it both covered in walker gore after being used as bat and shining like a trophy in the sunlight propped against a bike.

Beth also knew that the man who owned the beautiful weapon would never willingly be separated from it. 

“Where… where’d you find that?” she asked, breathlessly.

Noah’s grin faltered slightly and Beth’s heart skipped a beat in fear at the thought he was about to say a dead body, but the guilt that flashed across her companion’s face made her frown.

“Noah? Where’d you get that? And that gun?” She squinted at the large semi-automatic hanging from his other shoulder. Beth had been forced to abandon the one she’d had during the Governor’s raid on the prison, so she had no idea where Daryl had found another.

“There was some people a few blocks away but don’t worry! I made sure they didn’t follow me and I didn’t take all their weapons!” he hastened to add, as if worried she would think badly of him for stealing from other people. “They looked like the kind of people who would have more than one weapon on them.”

Beth couldn’t for the life of her understand how Noah had managed to take Daryl’s bow from him without a fist fight. The bow was as much his shield as it was his weapon and Noah certainly didn’t look like he’d been in a fight recently.

No longer unable to resist the draw, Beth raised a hand, reaching out and letting her fingertips brush the bow. She found that one touch wasn’t enough though and tugged it gently from Noah’s hand.

“Careful, it’s pretty…” He trailed off when Beth swung it easily into her arms, practically cradling it to her chest. “…heavy. You’ve used a bow before?”

“Yeah,” she whispered, and running a hand over the bolts, the strings, the trigger, familiarising herself with its weight in her arms again. “This one, actually.” The stunned expression that broke out across Noah’s face was nearly enough to make her smile before her gaze fell on the gun again. “Wait a second...You said people? How many?”

Noah nodded, still looking a little stunned by her admission and shaking his head. “Yeah, there two of them. A guy, dark-haired, looked like he’d fight recently. He had the bow and a woman had the gun. She had this short silvery hair.”

Daryl wasn’t alone. The relief nearly crippled her and she had to take a couple of steps back until she hit the conference table with her thighs to steady herself. She had been terrified he’d do something reckless, like when they had found the moonshine shack, disregarding his own safety entirely and toying with danger in a way that made her heart clench in fear for him. But Daryl wasn’t alone and he had actually managed to find at least one of their family. She’d never imagined that the first one they’d find would be Carol though. Daryl had told her what she’d done and the decision Rick had made to kick her out of the prison. She’d been shocked by the older woman’s actions, but at the end of the day, it was Carol. Carol who had been a mentor to her during those early days and weeks after the sudden loss of Lori, when the responsibility of caring for a squalling new born baby had been unexpectedly thrust upon her.

That Daryl had somehow found their friend and they were both in the city, hopefully in search of her, as she couldn’t think of anything else that would draw them into the city limits, had Beth butterflies dancing with excitement in her stomach.

“You know them?” Noah asked, breaking through her trance.

Beth nodded, her ponytail swinging. “Yeah. Daryl was the guy I was with when Gorman kidnapped me. I’ve known him and Carol almost since the beginnin’. You threatened Carol, didn’t you? That’s the only thing that’d make Daryl drop is bow, is if you threatened one of us,” she said.

Noah nodded sheepishly. “They the kind of people to hold a grudge?” he tried to joke. Beth didn’t have the heart to tell him that they were very much the kind of people who would indeed hold a grudge but she seriously doubted they would hold one against Noah when they heard the whole story.

“Where’d you see them?” she asked, swinging the crossbow onto her shoulder and hurriedly sorting all the energy bars and water bottles into the backpack, hardly able to believe less than half an hour ago she was in the depths of despair. The thought of seeing Daryl again had revitalised her and in her excitement her hands were trembling. “Oh, this is for you,” she said, handing Noah the _Winchester_ blade.

“Fair trade for a bow, I guess.” He grinned. He stepped forward and took the bag from her and swung it onto his own back.

“So where were they?” she asked again, impatiently. “We still have a chance of findin’ them.”

“It was only a few blocks away but I took the longer route back so they couldn’t follow me. They could be anywhere in the city by now.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m gonna find them.”

Despite the fact he was taller, Noah had to practically jog in order to keep up with the hard pace that she set in the direction he pointed.

It was so close. They had been so close and had had no idea, Beth thought, hurrying into the building Noah had led her to, stepping over a couple of dead walkers, the once again inanimate bodies giving her hope. They both took the stairs two at a time and she only slowed when she saw a shaft of light spilling out across the top few steps.

“You said you locked the door behind you?” she asked, approaching the doorway slowly, knife clenched in her hand tightly.

“Yeah. Why?”

“It’s not locked anymore,” she whispered, pushing it gently and letting it drift open. The vast, open plan floor was completely empty. She came to a stop in the middle, aware of Noah hanging back uncertainly.

She breathed in deeply, refusing to let herself get disheartened. She tried to tell herself there was no way they were going to stay for long in a place they’d been robbed. Daryl and Carol would have had no idea if Noah was working alone, or as part of a group, they would not have taken any chances.

“I’m gonna have to have a good apology speech for robbing them, aren’t I? Especially for leaving them with those walkers when I had these,” he said, tapping the gun. He’d kept his voice low but it still echoed in the vast emptiness around them and Beth tried not to shudder at how it reminded her of Grady’s hallways.

“How many walkers were there?” she asked, curious.

“About five, maybe?” he replied. He didn’t sound too confident but Beth wasn’t concerned. Daryl and Carol didn’t need their bow or gun to be dangerous, and after all the inmates they’d cleared from the prison, and even at the funeral home, a handful of walkers was hardly a threat to them. She was aware it would only take one bad day on their part to fall victim to one of the walking dead, but they were both smart and resourceful. She had to trust that they would be fine.

“Well, they’re not here now, so we need to find them. Do you still have that map?” she asked. Noah nodded and pulled it from his back pocket.

“We’re here,” Noah said, tapping the map briskly. “What are the chances your friends will suspect you were taken by Grady?”

Beth bit her lip and tugged a few loose strands of hair behind her ear nervously. That had been her main point of concern ever since she’d been separated from Daryl. Obviously, he’d worked out the destination if he was already in the city but how, she didn’t…

A splash of white paint across the far wall caught her eye. It was an arrow, pointing back towards the door her and Noah had come through, but the colour was what really captured her attention.

“The cross…” she muttered.

“What?” Noah asked, puzzled.

Beth’s gaze snapped back to him. “The cars at Grady were all painted with a white cross on the back windows! If Daryl saw it, he’d follow another car with the same mark!” Noah’s eyes widened at the implication.

The picture was falling clearly into place. Daryl must’ve gotten out of the funeral home in time to see the car – and Beth didn’t know what was a worse scenario; either he’d seen them kidnap her and attempted to stop them and possibly been injured, or he’d seen them too late and been helpless to stop them. Either way, Beth knew he’d blame himself, even if she was the one who’d not been paying proper attention to her surroundings.

But there was no way that Daryl could’ve kept up with a car, which meant he’d seen another and followed it right into the heart of Atlanta, but he obviously hadn’t been led straight to Grady because he’d encountered Noah only earlier that day. A white cross could really only mean one of two places; a church, or a hospital, she thought, her heart pounding. Back at the prison, they’d used a white cross on boxes to mark those as medical supplies. Grady was a big hospital and quite well known and Carol had been to Atlanta many times, Beth remembered her telling stories, so she would probably know of the hospital’s whereabouts.

“They’ll head towards Grady,” she said, confidently.

“We can’t go near there!” Noah injected quickly. Beth detected an undercurrent of fear in his voice. “Dawn’s gonna be pissed as hell and probably still looking for us!”

“Probably,” she agreed easily. “But Dawn also believes we’re weak and that we’re probably taking the most direct route out of this place. And Daryl and Carol aren’t stupid. They’re not going to walk up to Grady’s doors demanding they release me. They’ll scope it out before coming up with a plan.”

“You sure?” Noah asked, frowning.

“They’ve never rushed into something without checking it out first, they’re not going to start now.”

“How many times have you guys had to do something like this?” he asked, bewildered. It took her a few seconds to remember that Noah had spent much of his time safely hidden either in Grady or at his home, where they had some defences put up quickly after the world went to hell. He’d probably never encountered a herd so large it could swarm an entire farm or small town.

“I couldn’t even take a guess. We were on the road for eight months,” she explained, briskly. “Where’s Grady on here?” she asked.

“Here. And we’re here.”

“Okay, that leaves several places Daryl could use,” she admitted.

They could pick a place to sit and wait and hope that they might catch sight of them, but Beth knew even in a city landscape, if Daryl wanted to stay hidden then he would and Carol had the uncanny ability to be invisible even when stood in plain sight. No, the only hope she had to reunite with the only family she might still have left in the world was to think like them.

_“The signs are all there…”_

Daryl had told her when teaching her to track that it wasn’t just what you could see, but also what you couldn’t. Whenever they’d entered a house for supplies, Daryl had made her observe the front door before they approached. He’d said it was leftover social niceties ingrained in them that had them use an entrance or exit that already existed. If the areas around the doors looked well used, why? By who or what? If leaves and debris had built up around the door, it was always going to be more likely that the place hadn’t been opened in a long time. Clear or disturbed in any way, then it’d been used. 

_“…just gotta know how to read ‘em.”_

She stared thoughtfully at one high rise thoughtfully. It was only a couple of blocks away from Grady, so it was a definitely a risk but the building’s height would hopefully afford them a good view of the front of the hospital and anyone leaving or arriving. Beth hoped that Daryl would be tempted to it too.

She tightened her hold on the strap of the crossbow. Its weight and shape was a comfort against her back and she found herself nodding. “We’ll head here,” she declared, pointing at her chosen building.

Noah frowned thoughtfully and for a second, Beth thought he might argue about its proximity. With or without him, though, Beth was going to that building and Noah must’ve read the determination on her face because he shrugged and quickly folded up the map and slipped it back into his pocket.

“Okay, lead the way.”

Any doubts Beth might’ve had at her pick were quickly wiped away when she saw the building she’d picked. It was perfect. The front faced them on the street, but the back offices would let them stare right down at the hospital.

“I can’t see any walkers,” Noah announced, peering through the glass doors.

“Well, that’s somethin’” she muttered, watching their backs while Noah eased the doors open.

Although it pained her to do so, she pulled one of the spare bolts from its quiver and gently laid it on the ground, the bolt head pointing in towards the doors.

“What are you doing?” Noah asked.

Beth rose to her feet and grinned. “Leavin’ a sign.”

“Is that really gonna work?” Noah stared at the bolt resting by her booted feet.

She shrugged. “Worth a shot?”

Noah snorted. “No pun intended, right? Come on Maid Marian.”

Unlike a few of the buildings they had been in since their escape from Grady, the one Beth had chosen didn’t look like it had been used at all since the start. There were no tents, no metal bins that had been converted into makeshift campfires. Nothing but mess that told of a hurried departure of the workers.

A lone walker appeared on the first floor, looming out of the darkened corridor, accompanied by the usual rank smell of decay and rotting flesh. It was obviously starving though, as it lumbered forwarded without the energy that accompanied those who’d recently fed. It gave Beth time to heft Daryl’s crossbow into her arms and line up the shot, remembering to slow her breathing exactly as he’d shown her. Her splintered wrist burned at the weight she forced it to hold, but she managed to keep the bow steady. Her finger hovered over the trigger, waiting for the perfect moment.

Unlike last time, there was no animal trap to distract her and her shot was straight and true, right through the left eye. Noah whooped as loud as he dared behind her. Beth grinned, feeling rather proud of herself. She wished Daryl had been able to see it. Her first walker kill with a bow was something they’d been working up to for a while after he’d deemed her a good enough shot at the targets he’d carved onto tree trunks. Animals would’ve been after walkers, since they tended to still run away at the first sign of trouble, whereas a walker would head straight towards the noise.

“Leave the bolt,” she said, aborting Noah’s move to wrench it free.

“Another sign?” he teased, but left it where it was.

“We can pick it up on the way back down.”

Noah might’ve been amused by her actions but Beth was desperately hoping that if Daryl did pick the same building, it would be the perfect sign to tell him that Noah at least had been in the building. She rather hoped Daryl’s possessiveness towards his prized bow would draw him in like a moth to a flame. She’d had to badger him for two days straight before he’d agreed to teach her, despite the fact it’d been his drunken offer to show her that had put the idea in her head in the first place.

He had looked strange without it in his arms, or slung over one shoulder. His hands had twitched constantly without it on him and Beth couldn’t blame him. The bow was essentially an extension of him, something, by his own account, that had been the only thing that had been completely his. Even his brother, Merle, had left it alone. It had been a privilege when he had finally conceded. She’d thought they might hit the closest town to see about finding a hunting store to find one of her own to practice with, so she hadn’t at all expected to have him shove his own into her arms. She’d held it as she would’ve if it had been Judith, something careful and precious. She’d thought Daryl might’ve scoffed at the picture she made, her cradling a bow like a new born, but he hadn’t. In fact, he’d squinted at her for several seconds before claiming it suited her and stomped – as much as he ever did with his near soundless footsteps – into the undergrowth, leaving Beth no choice but to quickly follow.

A soft thud from above snapped her back to the present. They both glanced at the ceiling. Another uncoordinated thud had Beth pulling the second to last bolt from the quiver and dropping the bow to rest on the ground.

“Help me draw this, before we go up there,” she asked, slotting the bolt into place.

It took the combined strength of both of them, and involved several choice curses, before they managed to nock the bow. Brushing her hair from her sweaty brow, Beth was once again relieved that she’d managed to retrieve her knife. Daryl’s bow was excellent, but it was a tricky thing to use in a tight spot.

“Your friend does that all by himself?” Noah huffed, rubbing at his reddened hands. Beth nodded. “Man, I was lucky to get away without a beating, wasn’t I?”

They only met two other walkers on their way up through the building, and both were dispatched with Noah’s new knife.

“This thing is awesome,” he said, flicking it to rid it of some blood.

Beth, in the middle of peering out of a window, trying to catch a glimpse of Grady below, saw Noah’s reflection in the glass approach an office door, his hand reaching for the handle.

“Wait!” she shouted, spinning on her heel. But her warning came too late. The door opened and two walkers stumbled out. Noah cried out in alarm and fell down, one of the walkers grasping and snapping at him violently. Beth saw the knife fall from his hand and skid across the floor before it disappeared under a bookcase.

 _Rule number one_ , Beth thought, trying to dampen down the rising panic and raising Daryl’s bow at the second walker, _never open a door without knocking_.

Her heart pounding and her wrist screaming in agony as she once again forced it to hold the weight of the bow steady, she pulled the trigger. Its guttural moans were immediately silenced and it slumped to the floor. Beth dashed forward without hesitation. She yanked the bolt from the walker’s forehead and spun towards Noah, still desperately grappling with the other walker, trapped underneath its body. Beth grasped the walker’s shoulder and pulled up, drawing the snapping jaws away from Noah’s throat. The walker snarled but Beth didn’t pause and drove the bolt down into its temple.

Noah grunted when the dead weight slumped onto his chest. Beth quickly pushed at the walker, helping Noah move it enough that he could slip out from under it before she slumped to her knees beside him, the pair of them panting heavily.

“Thanks,” he huffed.

“No problem,” she replied, relieved to see he was bite free and, apart from looking a little shaken, none the worse for wear. She picked up the bolt she’d killed the two walkers with, relieved to note it still had its metal point, but the sight of the blood on her hand had her grimacing. It didn’t matter if it was from killing walkers, or from when she used to help her daddy in the makeshift infirmary, the sticky, red fluid coating her hands always made her stomach turn at the memory of her own slipping through her trembling fingers.

A low, rasping groan from the corridor beyond the still open door had her quickly forcing away the image of blood on bathroom tiles and back to her feet, Noah right beside her.

They both hit the door at the same time, slamming it shut with a loud thud. An echoing shudder told Beth the walker had rammed itself at the wood on the other side. The door handle shuddered under the barrage.

“We need to find somethin’ to hold it shut!” she gasped, throwing her shoulder against the door in a bid to hold it closed.

“Shouldn’t we try and kill it?” Noah asked.

“I didn’t see if it was just one or more and you don’t have your knife!” Beth reminded him.

“Where’d it go?”

“Under that bookcase!”

“Hang on! That’ll hold the door shut!” he cried, stepping away. Without his weight next to hers, the door practically rattled in its frame and Beth desperately tried to hold it shut, her feet scrambling but finding little grip on the threadbare carpet tiles.

Noah pushed at the bookcase urgently, but she could already see it was a lost cause. He may have been able to lower her into an elevator shaft but the six-foot solid wooden shelving unit hardly budge an inch with every frantic shove. But if Noah couldn’t move it, there was still something they could do.

“Tip it!” she gasped, unsure how many walkers were now banging on the door behind her but it felt like more than one slamming against the thin barrier between them.

“What?” Noah huffed.

“Tip it onto its side!”

Noah nodded and reached up, easily able to reach up and grip the top shelf with his height. “On three?” She nodded, bracing herself. “One… two… _three!”_

Beth pushed off from the door at the same time Noah tugged at the top of the bookcase. For a single moment, she didn’t think it would work and the room would be flooded with walkers, but under Noah’s weight, the bookcase rocked sideways, its books scattering across the floor with several thumps and then it was over. It hit the floor with a thud, right across the door, which already had two grasping hands pushing through the small gap that had opened up. While barely three feet tall on its side, it was still just as heavy and it was now long enough to cover the entire doorway. With a couple of hard shoves, the two managed to push it right up the door, trapping the two hands tightly in between the door and its frame. They jumped back quickly, desperately hoping their makeshift barrier would hold.

It did.

Breathing heavily, Beth wanted nothing more than to just sit, but over the hungry groans from the door, she heard footsteps. For half a second, she thought it was more walkers, but they were moving too fast and coordinated. Noah’s head jerking around and the panicked expression on his face confirmed he’d heard them - and that he’d noticed that they were people too.

Beth hurriedly snatched up the crossbow from the ground. It wasn’t loaded, but she could still do some damage with it. Behind her, Noah scrambled for the semi-automatic he’d dropped in the earlier scuffle.

Beth was suddenly very aware that they’d made an awful lot of noise and they weren’t that far from Grady, if a patrol had been going past… Still trying to catch her breath, she gripped the bow tightly enough her hands felt numb, but only a moment later, the air was stolen from her lungs when the achingly familiar people rounded the corner.

For several seconds, nobody moved, each of them too stunned at the others appearance to do so. But Beth hungrily ate up the sight of Daryl and Carol. Relief and happiness like nothing she’d ever felt before nearly had her collapsing to her knees and she was sure the only thing keeping her up was the residual adrenaline coursing through her.

Whilst his body might’ve been motionless, Beth saw Daryl’s sharp eyes cataloguing the entire scene he’d stumbled across; the two dead walkers, the door propped shut by an overturned bookcase, her blood stained hands clutching his crossbow and Noah’s sheepish presence at her back.

She in turn took in her friends’ appearances and she was slightly dismayed to see they both looked like they’d been in a scrap recently. Carol was holding one arm stiffly and had dried blood crusted across her forehead. Daryl looked no better, with a black eye that looked terrible, despite possibly being a few days old already, and the pair of them were covered in bruises. Clenched tightly in Daryl’s one hand were two of his bolts.

She lowered the bow, her arms aching under its bulk more than ever before, and it was the catalyst that had Daryl’s eyes snapping back to her. She grinned widely, uncaring that the motion pulled at the stitches in her cheek.

“You saw my signs, then?” she asked, almost tentatively under the weight of Daryl’s stare and nodded at the bolts.

Daryl didn’t reply verbally, which honestly didn’t surprise her, he was a man of few words. What did surprise her was when the bolts fell from his fingers. He stepped forward and she gave him another, much smaller, more confused smile that froze on her face when he wrapped his arms under hers, practically lifting her from the floor and into a hug. She was stunned for only half a heartbeat before she dropped the bow and wrapped her own arms around his shoulders, anchoring herself to him tightly and clutching at his angel wing vest, the leather creaking under her fingers.

The tight grip he had on her was enough to affirm that he was pleased to see her, more than his words probably ever would and she could practically feel the desperation and relief coming off him in waves. In response, she could only grip him tighter. Over his shoulder, through her slightly tear-blurred eyes, she saw Carol give her a weak, pain-filled smile. Beth furrowed her brow in concern when she saw the older woman move to lean wearily against a support beam.

Daryl finally set her down but he didn’t step away.

“You okay?” he asked, his eyes darting to the cut on her cheek and down to her bandaged wrist. His voice was as gruff as ever but Beth swore, in that moment, it was the best sound she’d ever heard, and she had to forcefully tell herself not to cry.

She nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little banged up.” Banged up didn’t quite described the treatment she’d received at Grady and she was proud that she couldn’t hear any waver in her voice, but Daryl must’ve heard something because his eyes snapped to hers sharply. He wasn’t quick enough to hide the flash of guilt that that flickered across his face. Beth hadn’t intended for her words to invoke any guilt on his part, not that she was surprised he blamed himself, not after how he had tried to shoulder it all after they had lost the prison, but Daryl had done nothing to feel guilty about. She felt his fingers ghost her own and she grasped them before he had a chance to pull away.

“You should see the other guys. Beth took ‘em on a pro,” Noah joked behind her. Daryl and Carol’s eyes both jumped to him and Beth saw he cowered slightly under their hard glares. “Hi again,” he said, cowered.

“This is Noah,” said Beth, with a grin. “We were in Grady together. I wouldn’t have gotten out without him. He’d been planning his escape for weeks.”

“I’m really sorry for robbing you,” he said. “I hope there’s no hard feelings?”

“I think you’ve made up for it by helping out Beth,” said Carol.

Noah quickly shook his head. “She helped me. Would probably still be stuck in there if I hadn’t of had her help,” he was quick to point out. Beth felt herself flushing under the praise.

Daryl grunted, somehow managing to convey he wasn’t at all surprised but Carol grinned, although it came out as more of a grimace and Beth couldn’t help but be concerned. She stepped forward to give her a gentle hug.

“Are you two okay?” she asked, now able to take in the full extent of their bruises.

“Van took a swan dive off a bridge,” Daryl explained, nonchalantly. Beth’s eyes widened in alarm and she couldn’t help but view their injuries in a new light. Bruises could indicate internal bleeding, they would be walking around with broken bones, damaged muscles. Her mind raced.

The panic must’ve been evident on her face because Carol gave her arm a placating pat. “We’re both fine, Beth. The seatbelt’s just jammed my shoulder.”

“Do you want me to take a look at it?” she offered but Carol shook her head.

“Later. We need to get out of here. The people who took you might still be looking for you, right?” Beth and Noah both nodded. “Then we need to get back to the others quickly.”

“Others?” Beth leapt on the word, her heart racing. They’d found others. “Who else is there?” she asked, her voice catching in her throat. She felt Daryl come up to her side. “Daryl?” she pleaded, grabbing his hand again and squeezing tightly.

“Everyone,” he said. Beth gasped. “Rick, Carl an’ Michonne were together. Maggie an’ Glenn.” Beth bit back a sob. “Tyreese, Sasha, Bob an’ Judith.” She didn’t even bother trying to stop the tears that slipped free at hearing Judith’s name. “Along with a few other strays Glenn found.”

Beth laughed and wiped at her tears. “I told you! I told you we weren’t the only ones!” She nudged his arm playfully.

“Yeah, ya did.” Daryl ducked his head, but not before she saw a small half smile. “We’re gonna need a car for Carol. Ain’t no way she’s walking back.”

Carol frowned and Beth knew her frustration wasn’t directed at Daryl’s comment - rather the situation in general – but Beth agreed with the bowman’s assessment of the older woman’s injuries.

“There were a couple of cars out front a bit further down the street,” said Noah. “Not sure how far they’ll get us though.”

“Don’t need to go far. The others ain’t that far outside the city,” Daryl replied. He glanced between Beth and Noah, bending to reclaim his bow and discarded bolts. “Get ya shit together, we’re leavin’ now.”

Noah jumped into action, grabbing the forgotten backpack and finally reclaiming his knife before approaching Carol. He awkwardly handed her the semi-automatic, which she took with a wry smile before accepting his offered arm. The hobbled off down the corridor, leaning heavily against each other and looking as mismatched as everything else in the world did now.

Beth made to follow them, but Daryl’s hand gently cupping her elbow held her back. She stared up at him quizzically, uncertain as to why they were still standing in the hallway with only the groans of the trapped walkers for company.

“Ya sure you’re okay?” he asked, squinting at her critically.

Beth immediately knew he was asking about more than just the obvious and it didn’t surprise her at all that he could probably see the invisible marks Grady had left on her. He was eerily perceptive when he wanted to be.

She nodded slowly. “I will be. That place was just…” She trailed off.

The hand on her elbow squeezed gently and he shifted awkwardly from foot to foot.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t… I tried, Beth. I ran after that car all night before I lost it. Knew you’d be alrigh’, you’re strong, like ya said, but I’m sorry I couldn’ find ya.”

Beth knew he’d have tried his damned hardest to find her but no part of her had expected him to chase after her _all night_. She had that last day in the funeral home carved into her memory in perfect detail. He’d been up at dawn to patrol the parameter they’d constructed and because she had been pretty much chair bound, he’d had to do nearly everything, insisted on in fact, so her ankle had time to heal. He’d been on high alert all day and she’d been planning on letting him sleep longer than their agreed four hour shift pattern – that being the only thing she’d been able to think of to thank him. He’d had nearly no rest and yet he’d still tried to chase after her.

“Daryl, you did find me,” she whispered, but Daryl shook his head.

“Not quick enough to help ya.” His eyes darted to her cheek.

The self-loathing in his voice nearly broke her heart and she reached for his hand, twisting her fingers tightly with his.

“You did help me,” she insisted, stepping forward until they were stood toe to toe and he had no choice but to look her in the eye. “All I kept thinkin’ when I was in there was what how would Daryl see this? How would Rick get information from people? How’d Maggie deal with the Governor when he was - ” She froze, not having intended to let those words slip out.

Daryl frowned, puzzled. “The Governor? What’s he gotta do with it?”

Beth cursed her luck he didn’t seem eager to let the subject drop. “Woodbury,” she whispered, again the words slipping free. “When he had Maggie and Glenn…”

As close as she was to him, Beth saw the moment he realised what she was referring to and a fire blazed in his eyes. “I’ll kill him!” He growled and she knew he would have single-handedly stormed Grady to put an end to Gorman had her free hand not moved to rest on his arm. She felt his muscles ripple underneath his skin.

“I already did.” Her admission was enough to knock Daryl out of his anger at least. She’d thought she’d become quite an expert at reading Daryl during their time together – barring that small stumbling block she’d had at the funeral home where she was so certain something had been lost in translation, because there was no possible way Daryl had looked at her like that because that wasn’t something Daryl did – but she had no idea what to make of the expression on his face in that moment and she hurried to explain, not quite able to meet his eyes.

“One of the other girls, Joan, he was… she killed herself. I found her in an office and he followed me in. He was going to… but I hit him over the head and then she was on him… I didn’t even try to help him.”

“Good!” Beth glanced back up at him. “Too good a death if ya ask me. I’dda made it last longer.”

She smiled weakly. The small part of her that had been terrified he would look at her differently – would see her as something weak that needed protecting - was immediately silenced. “I was on a bit of deadline.”

“Ya did the right thing, Beth,” he assured her.

Beth nodded and wiped her eyes, scrubbing away the tears before they had a chance to fall. Gorman wasn’t worth crying over, and she wasn’t naïve enough to believe she’d survive without killing anyone, the world being what it was now, but she hadn’t expected it to linger in her mind the way it did.

“Ya gotta put it away, Beth,” said Daryl, once again proving he was adapt at reading her mind.

She nodded again before drawing in a steadying breath. She smiled before her gaze was drawn to his black eye and it slipped from her face.

“Are you okay? I was really worried when I woke up in that room by myself. They said I was alone when they found me. I thought they were lyin’ but I had no idea if you’d even made it out of the funeral home! If I’d been stupid enough to let myself get caught and left you there to die!” she said, almost stumbling over her words in her rush to get them out.

Daryl surprised her again by gently pulling her into a hug. Beth let herself sink into his chest and tucked her head under his chin, reminiscent of the first hug she remembered giving him, back at the prison when he’d told her about Zach. But instead of being as stiff as a board like last time, Daryl was relaxed against her and the arms around her felt like a welcome shield from the rest of the world.

“Know ya’d never leave if ya could help it,” he said, relieving her of her irrational fear that he would blame her for their separation. “Not gonna lie, nearly had a damn heart attack when I realised what’d happened though.”

“Sorry,” she whispered. She felt Daryl shake his head.

“Don’t be. Not your fault.” He allowed her several more moments that she was expecting before he muttered, “We gotta go, Beth.”

They were the same words he’d said that made her realise they couldn’t hold the prison – if Daryl said they needed to go, they _really_ needed to – and they had the same effect as before. She drew in a steadying breath, soaking up the last bit of heat from his body before detangling herself.

“Yeah, we do. The others will be waitin’ for us, right?” she agreed with a grin. Daryl returned it with a smirk and a silent nudge to get moving. 

They caught up with Carol and Noah at the doors, both waiting patiently but alert. Beth stepped into line beside Carol, who shot her an amused grin, which she wasn’t quite sure what to make of, but she felt her cheeks flush pink all the same.

Daryl steadfastly ignored them all and stepped out, slinking like a cat into the shadows of the building in the direction Noah told him the cars were to be found. He slipped silently around the corner. Carol remained stationary in the doorway, but Beth stepped out a few cautious paces, Noah on her heels, unnerved at having Daryl out of her sight so soon after finding him again, but trusting he knew what he was doing.

The squeal of tires was their only warning.

Heart pounding, Beth lunged out of the path of black sedan, rolling on impact and unable to stop the cry of pain that escaped her when she landed heavily on her injured arm. The click of car doors slamming penetrated the fog of pain. Blinking back the tears, she caught sight of a white cross slashed across the rear window.

 _Grady_ , she thought, staring in disbelief at the familiar car. She scrambled desperately to push herself up, aware of Noah yelling angrily, out of sight around the other side of the car. She barely had time to get her knees under her before a pair of hands grasped her upper arms, forcing a startled cry from her.

“You really shouldn’t have run, Beth.” Hot breathe spilled uncomfortably across her ear and she struggled vainly in the vice grip of O’Donnell. “Dawn’s pissed at the stunt you and Noah pulled. You wouldn’t believe the grief she’s been given us! All because of you _pathetic_ runts!”

Beth didn’t have time to retort to the insult. The familiar twang of a crossbow reached her ears a split second before O’Donnell yelled in pain. She took immediate advantage of his loosened grip and wrenched one arm free before slamming her elbow back into his nose. The cartilage crunched under the blow. She rolled to her feet quickly, just in time to see Daryl step up beside her. O’Donnell’s howls of pain were cut short when Daryl – all anger and rage – smashed the butt of his re-loaded bow into the cop’s skull. He slumped heavily to the ground, a bolt buried deep in one shoulder and his face a bloody mess. Beth found she didn’t care all that much whether he ever got up again or not.

Daryl didn’t spare him a second glance before he trained his bow over the bonnet of the car and directly at the second cop, who had Noah in a chokehold.

“Let him go!” Daryl practically snarled.

“Lamson, you’re not an idiot,” said Beth, finally placing the man’s face to a name. He had been one of the more reasonable people Beth had interacted with in Grady. “Let Noah go.”

Lamson’s gaze darted between the two of them, before jumping to Carol as she emerged from the building, the gun Noah had dropped in his haste to escape being run over in her hand. Her expression was blank and she held herself steady despite the discomfort her shoulder Beth knew must still be giving her.

Finally realising he was outnumbered, Lamson slowly released Noah, who scrambled to his feet, but not before grabbing Lamson’s gun from his holster. Several zip ties fell to the pavement, dislodged by Noah’s actions.

Daryl nodded at them, not dropping his bow for a moment. “Tie him up,” he ordered and Noah hurried to do so.

“I’m sure we can talk this through,” said Lamson, his eyes still flickering between them all. “No one needs to be hasty.”

“Hasty like you, ya mean? Kidnappin’ folks from all over the place,” Daryl snapped. Beth saw his trigger finger twitching against the bow, the only motion that belied the outer calm of a hunter staring down his prey.

Lamson shook his head violently in denial. “We don’t kidnap anyone! Beth and Noah - we saved them!”

“So you don’t make them work for you in return for being ‘rescued’?” asked Carol, the contempt clear in her voice. “You don’t go creating an impossible debt so they can never leave? That’s not saving people.”

Carol had obviously taken advantage of Daryl and Beth’s absence to grill Noah about Grady, Beth thought, completely unsurprised.

“I have nothing to do with that! It was all Dawn’s idea!” Lamson said, voice raised to a level that Beth glanced around nervously to check no walkers were being attracted to the sound.

“You still went along with it,” she pointed out.

Lamson’s head dropped. “Noah can vouch for me. He knows me. I never did anything like the others – like Gorman – I never touched any of the girls!”

Everyone looked at Noah, who shuffled uncertainly on his feet. He shrugged weakly. “I never saw him do anything. He’s probably one of the good guys.”

“Do good guys usually try to run folks over with a car?” asked Daryl, eyes narrowed on the cop dangerously. Beth frowned and realised with a jolt that Lamson was on the driver’s side. O’Donnell had to have jumped out of the passenger side to reach her so quickly. Blood running cold, the regret she could hear tinging Lamson’s voice no longer sounded so sincere. She slowly reached down and removed the gun from O’Donnell’s holster, relieved to have some weapon in her hand.

Lamson stared up at them all, eyes darting around nervously. “Look, Dawn just asked us to bring them back in! Noah’s her ward and it’s not like Beth’s ever going to be able to survive out here!”

Beth glared, angry and annoyed at the man’s assessment of her survival skills. Daryl snorted in amusement before she had a chance to reply. She glanced over to see a small smirk had appeared on Daryl’s face as he stared the cop down.

“That’s where ya wrong,” he said, voice low but firm. “Beth’s been out here livin’, not just survivin’. Can you say the same? Nah, because you’ve all been hidin’ behind ya boss’ skirts like cowards!”

Lamson didn’t look at all convinced by Daryl’s assertions but he also didn’t look like he was about to start arguing with the redneck who had a crossbow pointed at his head. It didn’t matter though, Beth thought, Daryl knew how strong she’d become and if the rest of her family didn’t see that, then she’d just show them.

“Regardless,” Lamson said, catching her attention again. “None of us can survive out here on our own. We know that. You know that. I don’t know you, but I think I’m getting an idea…” Beth frowned, and she noticed Daryl’s gaze narrow slightly at the somewhat ominous turn of phrase. “Take me back to the hospital. I can iron it over with Dawn…make her understand!”

That was possibly the worst idea Beth had heard in a long time, she thought, trying to quench the panic threatening to rise up at the very idea of going back into that place. The offer of protection was another lure – like the funeral home had been – to set them up in another trap.

She glanced back over to Daryl to find his own gaze already on her. She didn’t even have to shake her head to translate to him what an astronomically bad idea returning to Grady was. She could already see in his eyes he had come to the exact same conclusion she had.

The soft crackling of a radio broke the still silence that had fallen upon them. A small voice cackled through the airwaves.

_“Lamson. O’Donnell. Report back immediately.”_

It surprised her, how fast her heart started to race at the sound of Dawn’s voice in the air. Just hearing that woman’s stern words made Beth flinch sharply. She felt the weight of Daryl’s gaze resting on her almost immediately, once again he had missed nothing, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet his eyes this time, too lost in the sea of emotions hearing Dawn’s voice had brought about. The woman had, in Beth’s mind, become the physical embodiment of the hospital and all that she had allowed to happen within its walls. She may one day be lucky enough to forget Gorman’s face and the touch of his clammy hands on her skin, but never would she forget the deprivation and rage… nor the spark of defiance it had lit inside of her.

_“O’Donnell. Report. Now! Did you find them?”_

“That’s Dawn,” she said, voice soft but strong. She raised her eyes and found herself staring directly into Daryl’s. When he had moved to stand in front of her, she had no idea, but he had placed himself - consciously or not, Beth wasn’t sure – between her and the car, as though he was trying to use his own body as a shield between her and the disembodied Dawn.

She watches him studying her, the feeling of his eyes on her, watching her every breath, is reassuring and familiar. She’d grown used to it when he had started to teach to her to hunt, the way he would catalogue her movement and correct as needed, making sure she was okay and confident in what she was doing.

Daryl doesn’t spare any second more than necessary to deem her as fine before he relinquished possession of his crossbow to her and strode determinedly the few paces to the sedan. As he reached inside for the transceiver, Beth spared a glance at Noah. He had been in Grady far longer than she had and she wasn’t the least bit surprised to find he also looked a little unnerved at hearing Dawn again.

_“Lamson - ”_

“Lamson and O’Donnell can’t talk right now,” he growled, cutting Dawn off sharply and leaning one bare arm against the roof of the car and turning to glare at the tied up cop kneeling on the pavement. “Guessin’ you’re the one in charge?”

There was a pause; long enough that Lamson started to look worried by the lack of response, before Dawn’s voice came back through the radio.

 _“Are they dead?”_ she asked, her tone flat and betraying no emotion whatsoever.

“One is,” Daryl confirmed. Lamson’s face blanched white horror and Beth realised that he hadn’t thought O’Donnell was dead. He’d been too far away to see the final blow Daryl had dealt his partner and maybe thought he could wait them out until O’Donnell regained consciousness.

_“Who are you?”_

“Don’t matter who we are,” Daryl replied shortly. “You really should bear in mind, if you keep lettin’ your boys snatch innocent folks off the street, one of these days you’re gonna piss off the wrong kinda people and that hospital ya so fond of? That’s gonna be raised to the ground.”

_“Are you one of those people?”_

Daryl snorted, amused and he glanced at Beth. “Oh I wouldn’ worry about us out here. You should all worry about the people you’re takin’ in. Never know what trouble ya migh’ pick up. But I think you’ve had a little taste of that, haven’t ya?”

Beth grinned, almost feeling proud. She had caused Dawn plenty of grief during her short stay.

A surprised yelp and a thud cut off any further response. Beth whipped her head around to see Carol hobbling to Noah, who sat stunned on the ground. Lamson was already away, staggering awkwardly in his binds down the street.

Daryl grunted, annoyed and raised the transceiver again. “One of your men just made his second mistake. Now both of ‘em are dead,” he said.

_“Wait - ”_

Daryl yanked the radio wires, ripping them from their sockets easily and cutting off Dawn’s voice.

Beth handed over the crossbow without hesitation. There was a moment’s pause before the string pinged. She didn’t even need to look to know Lamson would be a sprawled body across the street, a bold shot cleanly through his head.

“What was his first mistake?” Noah asked, somewhat hesitantly, accepting Carol and Beth’s hands up.

“Comin’ after us in the first place,” Beth told him softly. “Did the really think either of us would willingly go back there?”

Noah seemed to think on her words for a moment before he grinned widely. “Yeah, they were pretty stupid.”

“C’mon people! We’re burnin’ daylight,” Daryl called, opening up one of the back doors of the sedan and gestured at Carol. The woman hobbled over, her face pinched in pain again and she carefully lowered herself into the backseat.

Concerned, Beth moved towards the back and popped the trunk, hoping the hospital had stocked the car with some emergency supplies – ideally some painkillers – for Carol to take. At the very least, it would make her a little more comfortable on the ride back before they could take a proper look at her shoulder.

She flipped open a small, plastic box and grinned. Insider were a couple of unopened bottles of water, an abundance of Band-Aids, gauze, adhesive tape, antiseptic wipes and most pleasingly, a small stash of painkillers. She picked out a strip and a water bottle to pass to Carol before closing the box lid.

She smiled at Daryl when he came around the back of the car and waved her finds triumphantly.

He smirked, his amusement clear. “You ready, Greene?”

“Ready!” she confirmed.

With a small pull and the click of a latch, the empty trunk’s lid fell shut.

**XXX**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who know some of the theories about what could’ve happened to Beth’s ‘body’, I think the prevailing idea most people agree on is that she was left behind in the trunk of a car so I fixed that.


End file.
